


July 13, 1937

by carleton97



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-21
Updated: 2005-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carleton97/pseuds/carleton97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vernon Carver Rudolph was a genius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	July 13, 1937

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yin_again](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=yin_again).



It started during the morning staff meeting.

John had been minding his own business, annoying Rodney by correcting the math in the power grid schematics one of the new scientists had submitted and listening with half an ear as the various departments reported to Elizabeth. Halfway through Carson's diatribe on missing medical grade lube (during which he scrupulously did not look at Rodney), John smelled it.

It was faint and John couldn't pinpoint it's source, but it was there. The sweet, doughy smell of a Krispy Kreme original glazed. It was his one true junk food weakness and John would know the smell anywhere. He hadn't even realized he had sat up straight and was searching the room until he noticed Bates and Lorne had unholstered their sidearms and were scanning for any obvious threats.

"John?" Elizabeth hadn't moved from her chair, but was darting glances around the room.

Crap. He slouched back into his chair, "I thought I smelled...something. But I didn't. It's fine."

The eyebrow was his only response, but he picked up the report and waved his hand in a carry on sort of way and the meeting slowly resumed.

***

He smelled it again in the middle of the morning's training session, Basic Unarmed Combat. Or, as the Marines like to call it, Grappling for Geeks. Trying to be unobtrusive, he leaned over Teyla's shoulder and took a quick sniff. Nope, incense and a little sweat from sparring, not sugary doughnut-y goodness.

"Colonel?" Teyla had that look on her face. The if you do not have a good reason for your actions, I will be forced to school you look.

Luckily for John, the incoherent cry of an unmanned Marine distracted both of them from what promised to be a painful discussion involving sticks. He shook his head at the sight of Corporal Johnson clutching his nads and rolling on the ground. Dr. Simpson landed a solid kick to his kidneys before stalking off the mat. John had warned the new influx of Marines not to underestimate any of the scientists, but obviously he hadn't been clear enough.

Though he was pretty sure Simpson was getting extra hand to hand lessons from Bates during their down times. At least that's what he was going to assume was going on after seeing them stumbling out of the training room in the middle of the night.

The alternative hurt his brain.

***

John spent the afternoon chasing the phantom smell around Atlantis. He caught a whiff of it outside of Heightmeyer's office, then later in the Puddlejumper bay. He lost the trail for a couple of hours, but picked it up again in the corridor next to the Gate Room. It was stronger here and John closed his eyes, imagining he could see the regimented lines of doughnuts being fried to a golden brown before being drenched in sweet glaze. The doughnut would be hot as it came off the conveyor belt and the glaze would just barely be set, melting rather than cracking as he --

"Sheppard."

John blinked his eyes open, surprised to see Ronon nearly twitching in front of him. "Something bothering you, Ronon?"

"You smell it, don't you?" Ronon closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "It's sweet and...delicious. I thought the kitchen had created a new dessert, but it was only pudding again."

"I smell it," John affirmed, all the while thinking, Only pudding? The first time the Mess had served butterscotch pudding, John thought Ronon was going to Ascend right there. If there actually were Krispy Kreme's somewhere on base, John was going to have to be wily if Ronon was his competition. "Have you been able to find the source?"

Ronon opened his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it. "No. There are isolated areas of the scent, but no true trails."

Shoot. If Ronon couldn't find a trail, then John was pretty sure there wasn't one and he had to face the fact that one of the crew of the Daedelus was wearing one of those food scented perfumes. "Good luck hunting."

Ronon grunted and took off down the hall, obviously still intent on his search.

John took a final breath of doughnut scented air before turning on his heel and heading towards Rodney's quarters.

If he wasn't going to get doughnuts today, he for damn sure was going to get laid.

***

John considered himself lucky that Elizabeth had instituted enforced vacation days for Rodney, otherwise he knew there was a good chance then only time he'd get the other man to take a day off was when he bribed him with sex. It didn't stop him from working in his quarters, but it least got him out of the lab on occasion. As it was, today was one of Rodney's days off and, barring any emergencies, the Marines on patrol in the science wing were under strict instructions not to allow him into his lab.

"Rodney, I think I'm losing - " John wasn't really aware of his unfinished sentence or of the fact that he had unconsciously engaged four separate levels of security on Rodney's door. All he was truly aware of was the green and white box on Rodney's desk.

He knew Rodney was talking to him, but he ignored him in favor of creeping towards the desk. He wasn't one hundred percent certain the box was real, but as he drew closer he could again smell the scent that had been tormenting him all day and he carefully flipped the lid open.

Eleven shiny rings of yeasty, light as air, deep-fried -- Wait, eleven?

"Where's the twelfth?" John let his hand hover over the empty space in the box and wondered just how much extra conditioning he was going to punish Rodney with for stealing one of his doughnuts.

"That's all you have to say to me?" John didn't have to look to know that Rodney's chin had angled itself towards righteous indignation. "I use my considerable genius and my prodigious back-pay from the Pentagon to arrange for delivery of stasis-fresh Krispy Kreme's and you --"

"Rodney." John loved Rodney. He truly did, but at moments like this he sometimes had trouble remembering why. "Where is the twelfth?"

"Well, I had to use something to scent the entire base, didn't I?"

When John was a rebellious teenager, he had always considered it his greatest accomplishment when he could make that one vein in his father's forehead beat in time to his pulse. Now, feeling a tell-tale throbbing in his own forehead, he could only admire his father's self-control and wonder that he had been allowed to survive to adulthood.

"You sacrificed a Krispy Kreme doughnut to torture me? Rodney, I swear to god --"

"Oh, Colonel," Rodney smirked and displayed a plate holding the unmolested twelfth. "You'd be amazed what I can do with a chemistry lab and control over the city's ventilation system."

"Just for that, I'm not sharing." John grabbed at the plate holding his doughnut and let his fingers dance just above the unmarred surface. He felt vaguely like Gollum, but he figured if the One Ring had been made by Krispy Kreme, the little guy's obsession with it was perfectly understandable.

John held up a hand to halt Rodney's protests and carefully transferred the doughnut back to its place in the box. He reverently closed the lid and made sure the box was securely on the table before turning back to Rodney with a feral smile.

His mother had raised a polite boy, after all, and you always thanked someone for a present.

**Author's Note:**

> written for sga_santa


End file.
